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Sunday, March 13, 2011

From Chicago, where our rivers are green, people dress like leprechauns, and beer is the official sustenance, it's your host, the woman who just turned thirty-eleven, Dawn Meehan!

I don't really have any questions to answer this week. You guys have learned everything about me and no longer have anything to ask, I guess. :) So, instead, I'll tell you about my weekend.

On Friday, I realized that I'd lived in Chicagoland my entire life, but I'd never been to the St. Patrick's Day parade or the dyeing of the river, so I decided that the kids and I should take a field trip in the morning.

My alarm went off at 7:00. I looked at it, thought to myself, I don't really need to see the river dyed greened. I mean, it's pretty greenish year round, then I went back to sleep because I'm just that awesome and responsible. Half an hour later, Jackson woke me up and the lure of getting some cool pictures made me drag my butt out of bed.

We hopped on the L and began our trek downtown. I asked Clay if he thought we'd see any leprechauns. He looked at me deadpan, slowly blinked once, then responded as if explaining to a small, dim-witted child, "We might see some people dressed up like leprechauns, but we won't see any actual leprechauns because they're not real, Mom." I have got to remember to think twice before speaking to my kids. This is the reason kids think they know everything. This is the reason kids think adults are stupid. It's because we stay stupid things!

We got off the train and walked toward the river, following the sea of green shirts, green tights, green hats, green hair, green socks, green ties, green pants, and most importantly, green beer. We did meet a leprechaun (or a guy dressed up like a leprechaun). He didn't have a pot of gold, but he did have a glass of something gold, and judging by his staggering gait, it wasn't his first.

We made it to the water and fought our way through the crowd to see the boats speeding around the river, a beautiful, bright green in their wake.

Pretty cool, huh?

This is the point where the kids decided that although the green river looked awesome for the first five minutes we were there, it was too cold to hang around and admire it any longer.

We started walking back to the L when we spotted someone's toupee on the ground. Granted, it was really windy on Saturday, but how do you not notice your hair flying off?

We passed a cab with five air fresheners hanging from the rear view mirror. I was really thankful we were walking and didn't need a cab. (Don't mind me, Mr. Cab Driver. I'm just taking a picture of your collection of pine freshener freshness.)

We made our way back through the crowd of people who were well into celebration mode despite the fact it was 11:00 a.m., and we hopped on a train headed toward home. Two seconds into our return trip, the kids commented, "It smells like pee on here!" Yep, the kids not only got to see the river dyed green, but they also learned that St. Patrick's Day is a drinking holiday.

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I'll be doing most of my blogging over at Babble.com now, but don't worry, I'll post here and link to it every time I update over there. You can check out my blog on Babble here! I'm so excited to be blogging over there. If you aren't familiar with Babble, check it out; it's a great, informative, entertaining website! And Lisa Belkin who writes the Motherlode blog for the New York Times was instrumental in getting me hooked up with the folks at Babble, so my heartfelt thanks go to her! Right now, Lisa is laid up with not one, but TWO badly broken ankles. I know! Can you imagine not being able to even hobble around on crutches? I don't know what I'd do if that happened to me! So, head on over to Motherlode and offer her up some well-wishes.

12 comments:

Wicked cute pictures. And holy hell, your river really is green! I plan on celebrating St Pattys day on the 19th. I have a sitter. The beer shall not be green (I get eeked out by food coloring) but I'm sure it will go down just as well!

I just wanna say that I think you're doing a great job. I see your posts on how your teens tease you and scare you, and generally do crazy things to and for you, so you must be doing something right. Most teens wouldn't do half those funny things to their parents. Maybe a friend's parent, but surely not their own. They make me smile and I wanna give them a hug everytime I hear they help you or joke with you. Good kids. :)

Congratulations on your new job! I'm a fairly recent follower, but I'm already addicted to your blog. The first post of yours I read was the doll's house! That was hilarious, particularly as I have 6 kids of my own. Good luck

Is it just me or does anyone else find leprechauns a bit scary? Now if they'd just bring me a pot of gold... I'll gladly change my opinion of them:) Sounds like you and the kids had fun! And yes I agree... it's a drinking holiday and I'm looking forward to a pint of Guinness my goodness!

Okay, congrats on getting out of bed during the cold and seeing something that looks cool in photos. seriously, I was looking at it thinking, "cool, I wish I could see that!"

Did the bathroom project stall out? is it done yet? Photos? I know my parents worked on a bathroom and they didn't get the final finishing strip of laminate on the counter until the month after they put the house on the market, the scond time. I will feel better about myself if atleast another mom of a big family can get a house project finished before the house is sold to someone else (or they die, guess there is two ways to go)

:) Thanks for the humor and reality. It's nice to see the reality too. :) So nice that i'm going to give you five smiles as a reward! :) :) :) :) :)(oh boy, can you tell that i've got potty training/rewards on the brain?)

Oh, and praying for you and the boys as you contiune on the hard journey of mental/emotional recovery, therapists, med changes, AND teenagers. I've never been so thankful to only have the first 3 in our family!